


Never Again

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [86]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Mentions of Cancer, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-29 21:02:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5142347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Never Again

She wasn’t going to go. She didn’t _need_ to go. Regardless of whatever delusion Mulder was laboring under, there was nothing so clear to Scully as the fact that his so-called “source” was a liar and a con-man, at best. She could have taken care of the background checks in a matter of hours from the (admittedly somewhat dubious) comfort of the office. Even Mulder had to agree that eye-to-eye surveillance was well beyond the scope of what was required here, that it amounted to nothing more than busy work.

Expensive busy work, given the airplane ticket he’d requisitioned.

The problem, she realized, was that once she had taken care of the background checks, and whatever else she could find to work on for the day, she would have to return home. And at home, she would have a much harder time ignoring the words that had been marching through her head like a mantra since she and Mulder had returned from Pittsburgh two days earlier.

_You have something I need._

The idea -- the fear -- that she might one day develop cancer like the women in the Allentown MUFON group was one she had more or less managed to successfully bury deep inside herself somewhere. She chose not to believe, had honestly even forgotten for a time that it had ever been presented as a possibility. Her job, with its never-ending parade of murders and autopsies and monsters both human and not, was a more than adequate distraction, but Betts’s words had rekindled the fear from its dormant state into something that burned small and hot behind her eyes. Something that waited to claim her attention the very moment she wasn’t actively focused on something else.

So she did whatever she could to keep the fear contained, to deliberately find other things that required her concentration. She also hadn’t told Mulder about what Betts had said, because telling Mulder was the one thing from which there could be no turning back.

Telling Mulder would make it real. And she wasn’t ready for that, not yet.

The fear wasn’t even the worst part, if she were honest. She had a lot more practice ignoring fear than she did avoiding self-reflection, could push the terror down but somehow could not help taking stock of her life, examining almost methodically what she had gained and lost by making the decisions that she had, both professionally and personally. Her decision to leave medicine, to join the Bureau, to accept the assignment working with Mulder, to stay rather than requesting a transfer, to devote herself to her work at the expense of her old friendships, of the possibility of romantic attachment: all of it had left her… where? In a basement office with someone else’s name on the door and not even a desk to call her own? If her time really was running out, if she allowed herself to accept that for even a moment, then she also had to accept that she had very little to show for any of the sacrifices she’d made.

The self-reflection made her bitter, the fear was always simmering, and the quiet made all of it worse. Mulder wasn’t even gone five minutes before she found herself fighting the urge to yell and throw things at the wall, the silent office no better than her apartment in terms of keeping her distracted. So even though it was asinine and a ridiculous waste of government resources, Scully shoved the necessary files into her briefcase, grabbed the plane ticket, and called for a cab to take her to the airport.


End file.
